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Notably, delaying the trial would allow more members of Biden’s cabinet to be confirmed in the following period. But it could also reduce GOP support for the president’s conviction, given that the attack on Capitol Hill that spurred the impeachment effort is believed to be more than a month in the past.
“We received Chief McConnell’s proposal to deal only with pre-trial motions late in the afternoon. We will review it and discuss it with him, ”a spokesperson for Schumer said.
The discussion of a two-week delay comes as Congressional leaders try to work out the details of Trump’s second impeachment trial, including the former president’s defense against House charges he instigated the murderous insurgency on Capitol Hill earlier this month.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far declined to say when she plans to forward the indictment article to the Senate, a move that would force the Upper House to begin trial almost immediately. McConnell and Schumer are negotiating the timing of the trial as part of a larger discussion on the Senate organizing resolution in a 50-50 chamber as well as confirming cabinet candidates.
If the two leaders can negotiate a deal and gain buy-in from their caucuses, they can choose when the trial begins and shape it. Otherwise, the trial would start the next day, the Senate would sit after Pelosi sent the article.
“He has the right to defend himself,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito (RW.Va.) told reporters on Thursday. “I don’t think this is something we should rush.”
CBS first reported on McConnell’s efforts to push the lawsuit forward in February.
Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that she would take action “soon” that would officially launch Trump’s second impeachment trial. It could happen as early as Friday, more than a week after a bipartisan chamber voted to condemn Trump, according to lawmakers and aides.
But that could now change. Several Democrats have said part of Pelosi’s calculation is waiting for Schumer and McConnell to reach a 50-50 Senate power-sharing deal. Pelosi admitted this on Thursday, telling reporters the Senate was ready but there were “other questions about how a trial will unfold.”
“I’m not going to tell you when it was happening,” she added, declining to elaborate.
The House voted to impeach Trump on Jan. 13, with a week left of his tenure as all Democrats and nearly a dozen Republicans warned he posed a clear and current danger to the country.
But Pelosi has so far delayed transmitting the article to the Senate, a process that involves House impeachment officials delivering the documents through the dome of the Capitol. It’s a move similar to Pelosi’s handling of Trump’s first impeachment in December 2019, when Democrats waited weeks during congressional winter recess to pass the articles on as they sought to carefully choreograph the start. of the Senate trial.
This time around, the process is more complicated as the start of a Senate impeachment trial would come as Trump is removed from office and new President Joe Biden attempts to lock down his cabinet amid multiple national crises.
The Senate is moving swiftly to approve key national security positions this week, but a trial – which would require senators to sit in the chamber six days a week during its term – would almost certainly slow the process down for at least some of Biden’s candidates if he started immediately.
To complicate matters further, Schumer and McConnell have yet to come to an agreement to govern the Senate, which several Democrats say will have considerable influence on when Pelosi sends the article and when the trial begins. The biggest obstacle to getting a deal is McConnell’s demand for Schumer to preserve legislative filibuster, which Democrats have rejected.
Unlike 2019, however, when nearly all Republicans favored Trump’s acquittal, his fate in the Senate remains uncertain. 17 Republicans are unlikely to vote to condemn their former president, but leading GOP senators, including McConnell, say they remain undecided and the GOP conference calculation could change quickly.
Some Republicans have questioned the constitutionality of holding an impeachment trial now that Trump is no longer in office. Some have also complained that Democrats’ decision to impeach Trump – regardless of his involvement in the Jan.6 riots on Capitol Hill that left five dead – would undermine Biden’s calls for national unity at his inauguration ceremony on Wednesday. .
But Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she was “not worried” about the argument.
“The President of the United States has committed an act of incitement to insurgency,” Pelosi said. “I don’t think it’s very unifying to say, oh, let’s just forget that and move on. This is not how you unite.
“Just because he’s now gone – thank goodness – you don’t say to a president, ‘do whatever you want in the final months of your administration. You’re going to get a free jail release card “because people think you should be nice, nice and forget people died here on January 6.”
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